I’m a big fan of the GameCube controller and they truly are the best ones made for little hands. I basically got fed up of my joy-con drift issues and got these iPegas off Ali Express in Gamecube controller shape. I have not tried them out beyond keeping them attached to the main device. Part of getting into Nintendo is sharing my love gaming with my 5 year old son. The other consoles and systems that I have (PS4 Pro, XBox One S, PS3, Occulus Quest), bar exception, did not have content that was safe and accessible for a young mind.
As a 20 year Game Dev professional as well as a life long gamer, I wanted to discover gaming with my 5 year old through his eyes and we’ve and we’ve had a fabulous time with Pokemon, Mario on the Nintendo Switch. Ever single first party or direct Nintendo Switch game had a level of polish that I had not experienced for a very long time. And this might be because I’ve only owned two Nintendo systems – ever!
My first was a Gamecube which literally had one game on it – Metroid Prime. I must have done 2-300 hours playing that game. After that it was a Day-One Nintendo DS with Nintendogs which I traded a month away for Wacom Intuos 2 (best trade of my life I might add). Prior to that I mostly borrowed systems off friends because my parents did not feel I merited the purchase of a consoles due to my lackluster academic perfomances growing up.
However, I did play the heck out of every Nintendo game that I could find since the original NES. Super Metroid is probably the best 16 bit game of the era.
My 5 year old recently got into Pokemon. We started to watch some movies on Apple TV and it ballooned in what was an innocent hobby in self-isolation to something like the below – yes, he gets a box a week for good behaviour. He really works hard to get them.
The more we started to explore Pokemon and the culture around it, the more fascinating it became. The video games were of interest but I did not want to buy a pricey Switch game and spend half my team helping him read through more complex sentences. Based on how impressive my experience was with a Switch we picked up a Nintendo 2DS XL and a 3DS XL.
This is one of the best systems I have ever seen – Nintendo’s DS series has an incredible library and plenty of Pokemon related content. It’s easy to access and plenty of other games that are easy and cheap to pick up – especially the original DS games. Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings and Radiant Historia stuck out as titles I never played especially since I loved FF12 and Radiata Stories – the latter remains my favourite PS2 title.
So this looks like an amazing system to collect for. I love Nintendo handhelds – they’re just wonderful polished experiences. Over the coming weeks I’ll be discussing other platforms that my son and I explore together.
I’ve discovered the Nintendo handheld collector’s market and it’s quite a cool group of people from all walks of society.
